11 minute read
SHEKU KANNEH-MASON & ISATA KANNEH-MASON
PRELUDE 7 PM
Lecture by Michael Gerdes
A Song for Cello
Each piece on this program comes from a different moment and place in the twentieth century…1960s Armenia, 1930s Soviet Union, and Britain at the end of World War I. But each of them bears the same title: Sonata for Cello and Piano. In this prelude lecture, we will explore the meaning of this title throughout history and how each of these composers has made it their own.
SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2022 • 8 PM
THE BAKER-BAUM CONCERT HALL BRIDGE
(1879-1941) Sonata for Cello and Piano, H.125
Allegro ben moderato
Adagio ma non troppo; Molto allegro ed agitato
BRITTEN Sonata for Cello and Piano in C Major, Opus 65
(1913-1976) Dialogo Scherzo-pizzicato Elegia Marcia Moto perpetuo
La Jolla Music Society’s 2021-22 Season is supported by The Conrad Prebys Foundation, The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, Banc of California, The Lodge at Torrey Pines, ProtoStar Foundation, Vail Memorial Fund, ResMed Foundation, Bright Events Rentals, Ace Parking, Brenda Baker and Steve Baum, Raffaella and John Belanich, Gordon Brodfuehrer, Mary Ellen Clark, Joy Frieman, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, Dorothea Laub, Jeanette Stevens, Debra Turner, Bebe and Marvin Zigman.
Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason appear by arrangement with Enticott Music Management Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Isata Kanneh-Mason record exclusively for Decca Classics Sheku plays a Matteo Goffriller cello from 1700 which is on indefinite loan to him
INTERMISSION
K. KHACHATURIAN Sonata for Cello and Piano
(1920-2011) Recitativo: Adagio Intentio: Allegretto Aria: Andante Toccata: Allegro con fuoco
(1906-1975) Allegro non troppo
Allegro
Largo
Sonata for Cello and Piano, H.125 FRANK BRIDGE
Born February 26, 1879, Brighton, United Kingdom Died January 10, 1941, Eastbourne, United Kingdom Composed: 1913-17 Approximate Duration: 23 minutes
Frank Bridge appears fated, at least for American audiences, to be remembered as the teacher of Benjamin Britten, though Bridge was a remarkable musician and composer in his own right. He studied viola and composition at the Royal College of Music and then made his career as a violist, conductor, and composer: Bridge played viola in several string quartets and conducted in both England and the United States. As a composer, he made a gradual evolution from a conservative musician, heir to the nineteenth-century English pastoral tradition, to an explorer, interested in new ideas and willing to experiment with a new harmonic language. Bridge became interested in Britten when the latter was still a boy and for three years gave him private composition lessons. Bridge was a demanding teacher, and his concern for craftsmanship, self-criticism, and economy of expression made a strong impression on the young Britten; Bridge’s pacifism was also an influence on Britten’s values.
It may be a measure of Bridge’s careful craftsmanship that it took him four years to compose his 23-minute Sonata for Cello and Piano. He composed the first movement in 1913, but the second and concluding movement required three years of work before he completed it in 1917. There may have been another reason for Bridge’s difficulties. A pacifist, he was appalled by the slaughter of World War I, which began in 1914. Bridge’s friends reported that he would get up during the night and walk for hours through the pre-dawn streets of Kensington, despairing. Listeners should be careful not to look for signs of this in the second movement—that movement is a piece of abstract music and is by no means pictorial—but Bridge’s difficulties completing this movement may reflect his own personal turmoil during that troubled time.
The sonata consists of two big movements. Bridge specifies that the beginning of the Allegro ben moderato should be dolce e espressivo, and that might be a good key to the character of the entire first movement. Bridge writes beautifully for the rich middle and high range of the cello, and he builds this movement on several theme-groups. The music can be by turns soaring, passionate, gentle, and agitated, and after these varying moods it comes to an understated close.
The second movement is much longer and more complex. Bridge had originally thought that the sonata would have three movements, but during the long composition of the second movement, he decided instead to conclude with a single movement that alternates reflective and dramatic music—in effect, the last movement is a combination of slow and fast movements. Piano alone leads the way into the Adagio ma non troppo, and soon cello and piano jointly announce a rocking theme in 9/8. But suddenly the music erupts at the Molto allegro ed agitato, and this alternation of extroverted and restrained music will characterize the entire movement. Bridge’s harmonic language here is much more adventurous than it was in the first movement. The music drives to a grand climax, and Bridge rounds the sonata off with an Allegro moderato coda that recalls music from the opening movement.
Born November 22, 1913, Lowestoft, United Kingdom Died December 4, 1976, Aldeburgh, United Kingdom Composed: 1960-61 Approximate Duration: 20 minutes
In 1960 Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich introduced two of his close friends, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and composer Benjamin Britten. These two in turn became good friends, and theirs was a creative relationship: over the next few years the English composer wrote five works for the Russian cellist. The first of these was the Sonata for Cello and Piano, begun in December 1960 and completed the following month. It was scheduled for its première the following summer, and Britten and Rostropovich gathered to rehearse it.
As might be expected, the two new friends—both creative artists—were a little nervous about the prospect of trying it out for the first time. Rostropovich later described the scene: “Ben said, ‘Well, Slava, do you think we have time for a drink first?’ I said, ‘Yes, yes,’ so we both drank a large whisky. Then Ben said: ‘Maybe we have time for another one?’ ‘Yes, yes,’ I said. Another large whisky. After four or five very large whiskies we finally sat down and played through the sonata. We played like pigs, but we were so happy.” The première performance—a great success—took place at the Aldeburgh Festival on July 7, 1961.
The sonata is in five movements, rather than the expected three or four, and much of its thematic material is based on the interval of a second, either rising or falling. The opening movement, Dialogo, begins with a tentative cello figure that revolves around this interval; Britten marks its first appearance lusingando (“intimate, coaxing”). The second subject, marked dolce, is a slow extension of that opening theme; the animated development leads to a close on fragments of the original theme. In the brief Scherzo, Britten has the cello play pizzicato throughout—the composer
called this movement “guitar-like”—and the piano’s staccato accompaniment mirrors the cello’s pizzicatos. The piano’s introduction to the Elegia again revolves around the interval of a second; the cello’s grieving opening melody rises to a full-throated climax before falling away to end quietly.
The fourth movement, a sardonic march, whips past in barely two minutes; Britten accentuates the aggressive quality of this music by having the cello at moments play ponticello (bowing on top of the bridge to produce a grainy, disembodied sound) and giving it stinging glissandos. The finale is a perpetual motion movement based on the cello’s opening theme. Britten marks the theme saltando, which means “leaping”—that is, played with a springing bow. This opening subject will recur in a great range of moods, forms, and registers in the breathless finale.
Sonata for Cello and Piano KAREN KHACHATURIAN
Born September 19, 1920, Moscow Died July 19, 2011, Moscow Composed: 1966 Approximate Duration: 19 minutes
Listeners should be alert to the identity of the composer of the opening piece on this program. This sonata is not by Aram Khachaturian—famous for his ballet scores and fiery Sabre Dance—but by his cousin, Karen Khachaturian. Though he is also of Armenian descent, Karen Khachaturian was born in Moscow, where his father was a theatrical director. The son studied first at the Gnesin Musical School and then went on to the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied with Shostakovich, Miaskovsky, and Shebalin. After graduation from the Conservatory, he taught orchestration there for many years. Karen Khachaturian’s works include ballet, operetta, four symphonies, oratorio, much choral music, and chamber music. He also wrote over forty film scores (and appeared as an actor in two plays).
Khachaturian composed his Sonata for Cello and Piano in 1966, and he wrote it specifically for Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the first performance on January 10, 1967. The sonata is concise: its four movements span only about nineteen minutes. Perhaps because he was writing for a powerful player, Khachaturian made this a very powerful sonata. He can write lyrically for the rich sound of the cello, but listeners may be more immediately struck by the sometimes violent character of this music: much of the writing (for both instruments) is spiky, pointilistic, staccato. Both instruments are given abrupt chords and explosive attacks, and Khachaturian makes full use of the many sounds the cello can make: sul ponticello bowing (right atop the bridge), glissandos, harmonics, pizzicatos, and even harmonic pizzicatos. The sonata is dedicated to Rostropovich, who later recorded it.
The four movements are in the slow-fast-slow-fast sequence of the baroque instrumental sonata, but that is about the only “baroque” aspect of this music. The sonata opens with a long solo for the cello deep in its register. This sets the mood of the mournful first movement, and the cello is eventually joined by the piano, whose accompaniment is minimal: lonely chords or brief transitional passages. But it is the solo piano that leads the way into the second movement, establishing a different mood with its sharp-edged, spiky sound. The writing for cello in this movement is dramatic and strident (it is full of glissandos), and the music drives to a fierce concluding chord. The third movement is titled Aria, and now the music changes character as the cello sings lyric lines over staccato piano accompaniment. Soon, though, the music grows impassioned, and Khachaturian enlivens the climax with the cello’s harmonics, both bowed and plucked. The concluding Toccata is indeed a brilliant movement— Khachaturian marks it Allegro con fuoco (“with fire”). It is essentially a perpetual motion for the cellist, and the sonata drives to the furiously dramatic conclusion that we expect.
Born September 25, 1906, St. Petersburg Died August 9, 1975, Moscow Composed: 1934 Approximate Duration: 26 minutes
Shostakovich began writing his Cello Sonata on August 15, 1934, and completed it on September 19, a week before his 28th birthday. This was an unusually calm interlude in the often-tormented life of this composer. Earlier that year he had scored a triumph with the première of his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, which was now headed for production in Buenos Aires, New York, Stockholm, Zurich, and other cities. The infamous Pravda attack on the opera— an assault that nearly destroyed Shostakovich’s career— would not occur for another sixteen months. Audiences normally think of Shostakovich’s music from this early period as brilliant, witty, and nose-thumbing, but already another of Shostakovich’s many styles had begun to appear: the neoclassical. In 1933 he had written Twenty-Four Preludes for piano (with the model of Bach’s sets of twenty-four preludes clearly in mind), and the Cello Sonata—with its romantic melodies, conservative harmonic language, and fairly strict classical forms—is very much in the manner of the cello sonatas of Beethoven and Brahms.
Frequently performed and recorded, the Cello Sonata remains one of Shostakovich’s most approachable works, particularly for its broad lyricism and generally untroubled spirit. Viktor Lubatsky was cellist and Shostakovich the
pianist at the première, which took place on Christmas Day 1934. Shostakovich was a virtuoso pianist, and it is not surprising that the piano is given so prominent a role in this sonata: it introduces several themes, dominates textures, and is an extremely active participant.
The cello, however, has the lovely opening melody of the Allegro non troppo. The piano introduces the quiet second theme, and both are treated fully before the quiet close of this sonata-form movement. Brisk cello arpeggios open the energetic Scherzo, with the piano singing the main idea high above; the piano also has the second subject over eerie, swooping swirls from the cello. The Largo begins with a recitative-like passage from the cello in its deepest register; soon the piano enters, and the movement’s central theme is heard: a lyric, flowing passage for cello over steady piano accompaniment. Dark and expressive, this Largo stands apart in its intensity from the other three movements of the sonata.
The concluding Allegro comes closest to the sardonic manner of Shostakovich’s early music. The piano has the abrupt main idea, and the cello’s restatement already brings a saucy variation. The theme goes through several episodes, some of them humorous. At times the humor is almost too broad: one of the instruments will have the theme, played fairly straight, while in the background the other is going crazy with the most athletic accompaniment imaginable. For all its humor, however, the music never turns to slapstick, and the final episode—for piano over pizzicato accompaniment— is lovely.
Those interested in this sonata should know that while it has had many fine recordings, the most interesting remains one made long ago (in monophonic sound), featuring the composer at the piano and a very young Mstislav Rostropovich as cellist. This performance has reappeared on compact disc and is well worth knowing, despite its inevitable limitations of sound.
